Honoring Roger Ebert, critic and fan

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Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic

Published 7:00 am, Friday, April 30, 2010

In this undated photo released by Disney-ABC Domestic Television, movie critics Roger Ebert, right, and Gene Siskel are shown. Starting Thursday, Aug. 2, 2007, a new web site touted as the largest collection of video-based movie reviews online will begin. The site will feature clips from the show that made the thumb famous and include 5,000 movie reviews, spanning more than 20 years of the show hosted by newspaper film critics Roger Ebert and the late Gene Siskel and columnist Richard Roeper.
(Disney Via AP)

In this undated photo released by Disney-ABC Domestic Television,...

Film Critic Roger Ebert, left, gives a thumbs up to the audience as Illinois Governor Pat Quinn reads a proclamation declaring April 21, 2010 Roger Ebert Day in Illinois during the opening of the Twelfth Annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign on Wednesday, April 21, 2010.(AP Photo/Robin Scholz/The News-Gazette)
Ran on: 04-30-2010
Roger Ebert, above right with the late Gene Siskel and below, will be honored by the San Francisco International Film Festival.
Ran on: 04-30-2010
Roger Ebert, above right with the late Gene Siskel and below, will be honored by the San Francisco International Film Festival.
Ran on: 09-14-2010
Film critic Roger Ebert gives a thumbs-up as Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (right) declares April 21 as Roger Ebert Day in Illinois.
Ran on: 09-14-2010
Film critic Roger Ebert gives a thumbs-up as Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (right) declares April 21 as Roger Ebert Day in Illinois.

Film Critic Roger Ebert, left, gives a thumbs up to the audience as...

(Seth Perlman, AP)

(Seth Perlman, AP)

SANTA MONICA, CA - MARCH 07: Film critic Roger Ebert speaks at the signing for his new book "Great Movies II" at Barnes & Noble Booksellers on March 7, 2006 in Santa Monica, California.
(David Livingston, Getty Images)

In the century or so that there has been such a thing as film criticism, no other critic has ever occupied the space held by Roger Ebert. Others as influential as Ebert have not been as esteemed. Others as esteemed as Ebert have not had the same direct and widespread influence. And no one, but no one, has enjoyed the same fame.

Or to put it another way, if Ebert were a movie, he'd be "Schindler's List" or "The Godfather" - a box office and a critical success. Andrew Sarris is one of the great critics, but the average person doesn't know his work. The late Pauline Kael was a cultural byword for many years, but only within an elite circle of readers. On the flip side, the late Bosley Crowther of the New York Times was once the most important voice on film in the country, but his work hasn't dated well. And we can all name various critics that we see on TV, some good, some bad, but no one is like Roger Ebert.

To be both extremely good and extremely popular is rare. Ebert has maintained his privileged position in American cultural life by virtue of intelligence, talent and physical energy. Those are innate gifts. But his success has also been a matter of character, with qualities like enthusiasm - and love.

Ebert will be at San Francisco's Castro Theatre on Saturday evening to accept the Mel Novikoff Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The festivities, billed as "An Evening With Roger Ebert and Friends," will include appearances by filmmakers Philip Kaufman, Errol Morris, Jason Reitman and Terry Zwigoff. And then, as is typical of Ebert, he will use his public platform to cast the spotlight on a film that deserves recognition: Erick Zonca's "Julia" (2009), a terrific character study/thriller starring Tilda Swinton that has grossed only $65,000 at the domestic box office.

It's funny how you can see someone and feel you know him and then find out that you didn't, not really. As half of the Siskel & Ebert reviewing duo, and in frequent television appearances on talk shows, Ebert hid in plain sight. Next to the affable and urbane Gene Siskel, Ebert could seem stiff and standoffish. The only hints of Ebert's true nature were in his critical comments and in the way he'd almost bounce in his seat when excited about a point he wanted to make.

The real Ebert

I discovered the real Ebert through his writing. There are hot critics and there are cool critics, and despite his sometimes impassive TV manner, Ebert has always been a hot critic. He has a great willingness to be moved. He engages with the emotions of a film's characters. Aware of the technical aspects of film, he is also very much plugged into how these effects work on an audience's feelings. And he explains these emotions and feelings with no fear of revealing himself. I've always felt that the reserved Ebert we saw on television was just the protective shell for the sensitive guy that came through in the writing.

In more recent years, Ebert showed more of a willingness to let down his hair in public. As a critic, I used to blush a little to see him on the Oscar runway every year, gushing over various stars and filmmakers, until I realized why I found it embarrassing: He was showing the world something true, that a critic is, essentially, a fan with an IQ; that, in fact, a critic has to be a fan, because nothing other than love can sustain critical enthusiasm over the course of years. That unmistakable enthusiasm prolonged his weekly television show after Siskel's death in 1999. It was on life support once Ebert left, and in late March the show was finally canceled.

Ebert's love of movies and of movie criticism has kept him a young man in his work. He could have coasted on his TV reputation and on his career at the Chicago Sun-Times - certainly, he had enough to do - but instead he wrote books. He could have used his fame to promote himself, but he's used it to advance the cinema. He has changed artists' lives and widened viewers' perceptions. His inexhaustible enthusiasm has been an inspiration to people who write arts criticism in every field.

Generous colleague

But perhaps it's only recently that people have come to recognize in the acuteness of Ebert's intellectual appreciation a form of spiritual generosity. Instead of writing for the professors, he writes for the masses. Instead of acting like a big shot, he has always been a colleague. For the past few years, Ebert has had to contend with a miserable illness that has robbed him of his speech. (He talks through computer software that speaks his typed words.) But illness hasn't stopped his work, nor has it diminished its quality. My favorite of Ebert's books is his "Great Movies" series, and I look forward to the third volume, which comes out in October.

Indeed, it seems almost as if illness has released Ebert in some way, allowing him to be the tender spirit that was always there in his writing but that he could never quite show. Of course, he has bad days. Of course, he has not suddenly become a saint - life is not a movie. But I think there's an awareness out there that in honoring Ebert, the film society is not just recognizing his writing, or his TV work or his place as an American institution.